Coronado - Dennis Lehane [8]
And the only thing you were sure of was that you were too fucking hot and still—this was the terrible thing, but oddly exhilarating too—deeply afraid.
Elgin lowered Blue’s rifle, stared across the interstate, now the color of seashell, at the dark mint tree line. The dog was barely noticeable, a soft dark shape amid other soft dark shapes.
He said, “No, Blue, thanks,” and handed him the rifle.
Blue said, “Suit yourself, buddy.” He reached behind them and pulled the beaded string on the klieg light. As the white light erupted across the highway and the dog froze, blinking in the brightness, Elgin found himself wondering what the fucking point of a LAD scope was when you were just going to shine the animal anyway.
Blue swung the rifle around, leaned into the railing, and put a round in the center of the animal, right by its rib cage. The dog jerked inward, as if someone had whacked it with a bat, and as it teetered on wobbly legs, Blue pulled back on the bolt, drove it home again, and shot the dog in the head. The dog flipped over on its side, most of its skull gone, back leg kicking at the road like it was trying to ride a bicycle.
“You think Jewel Lut might, I dunno, like me?” Blue said.
Elgin cleared his throat. “Sure. She’s always liked you.”
“But I mean…” Blue shrugged, seemed embarrassed suddenly. “How about this: You think a girl like that could take to Australia?”
“Australia?”
Blue smiled at Elgin. “Australia.”
“Australia?” he said again.
Blue reached back and shut off the light. “Australia. They got some wild dingoes there, buddy. Could make some real money. Jewel told me the other day how they got real nice beaches. But dingoes too. Big Bobby said people’re starting to bitch about what’s happening here, asking where Rover is and such, and anyway, ain’t too many dogs left dumb enough to come this way anymore. Australia,” he said, “they never run out of dog. Sooner or later, here, I’m gonna run out of dog.”
Elgin nodded. Sooner or later, Blue would run out of dog. He wondered if Big Bobby’d thought that one through, if he had a contingency plan, if he had access to the National Guard.
“THE BOY’S JUST, what you call it, zealous,” Big Bobby told Elgin.
They were sitting in Phil’s Barbershop on Main. Phil had gone to lunch, and Big Bobby’d drawn the shades so people’d think he was making some important decision of state.
Elgin said, “He ain’t zealous, Big Bobby. He’s losing it. Thinks he’s in love with Jewel Lut.”
“He’s always thought that.”
“Yeah, but now maybe he’s thinking she might like him a bit too.”
Big Bobby said, “How come you never call me Mayor?”
Elgin sighed.
“All right, all right. Look,” Big Bobby said, picking up one of the hair-tonic bottles on Phil’s counter and sniffing it, “so Blue likes his job a little bit.”
Elgin said, “There’s more to it and you know it.”
Playing with combs now. “I do?”
“Bobby, he’s got a taste for shooting things now.”
“Wait.” He held up a pair of fat, stubby hands. “Blue always liked to shoot things. Everyone knows that. Shit, if he wasn’t so short and didn’t have six or seven million little health problems, he’d a been the first guy in this town to go to The ’Nam. ’Stead, he had to sit back here while you boys had all the fun.”
Calling it The ’Nam. Like Big Bobby had any idea. Calling it fun. Shit.
“Dingoes,” Elgin said.
“Dingoes?”
“Dingoes. He’s saying he’s going to Australia to shoot dingoes.”
“Do him a world of good too.” Big Bobby sat back down in the barber’s chair beside Elgin. “He can see the sights, that sort of thing.”
“Bobby, he ain’t going to Australia and you know it. Hell, Blue ain’t never stepped over the county line in his life.”
Big Bobby polished his belt buckle with the cuff of his sleeve. “Well, what you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you. Next time you see him, Bobby, you look in his fucking eyes.”
“Yeah. What